River of Light parade to get a 2020-apropos reboot

August 21, 2020  |  By Lisa Scagliotti

The 2019 River of Light lantern parade fills Stowe and North Main Streets on a chilly December night. This year's event will aim to avoid large crowds due to public health concerns. Photo by Gordon Miller.

Organizers of the annual River of Light lantern parade say they are moving ahead with plans for the December event but just like so many other things this year, it will likely happen in a way that takes into account the COVID-19 pandemic. 

“It’s going to be a whole different experience,” said MK Monley, a lead organizer for the popular annual parade. 

This year will be the 11th time River of Light lights up the early December evening in Waterbury village. But to avoid attracting crowds to march carrying lighted lanterns and to line the streets to watch, the working idea now involves holding the event across two nights: Friday, Dec. 4, and Saturday, Dec. 5, as a walk-through exhibition of sorts, Monley said. 

Since it began in 2009, a mainstay of the parade has been several hundred students from Thatcher Brook Primary School carrying lanterns they make themselves under the guidance of Monley, who is their art teacher. 

Each year’s parade has had a theme and Monley along with other artist organizers have held workshops for older students and adults in the community to join in the lantern-making, often creating elaborate pieces that require multiple people to carry them in the procession. The result is a parade with people of all ages carrying their lit-up creations from the primary school on Stowe Street to Dac Rowe Park on North Main. Percussion bands join in at the front and back to set the pace and add to the festive atmosphere. 

This year’s plan banks on participants generally knowing how it all works. 

Monley said the working idea at the moment would involve having kits available for those who want to take part and who need to make a lantern. YouTube videos may figure into that process as well. 

But instead of people marching carrying their lanterns through town, the lighted pieces instead would be put on display at Dac Rowe Park, Monley explained. People would be invited to add their lanterns to the display themselves with the exhibition open Friday and Saturday evenings for people to walk through at their own pace and keeping distance from each other. Lanterns would come down on Sunday, she said. 

The reimagined display might also have some music during the visiting times. 

“Our hope is that by allowing two nights of viewing, there will not be large crowds of people at any one time,” Monley said. “It gets dark early, so you'll be able to walk through from 5 p.m. on.” 

People could visit the exhibition while spending time downtown to shop or eat, Money suggested. 

So far, no word on the theme yet. More details will be online soon on the parade’s website. 

Organizers are eager to see the River of Light happen even if it means taking on a new format to be safe from a public health standpoint. “As we make our path forward, we need to share our light with each other, now more than ever,” Monley said.

The 2015 River of Light lantern parade included an exhibit at Dac Rowe Park with little lighted lanterns hanging on wires strung between wooden branches. Photo by Gordon Miller.